TEEN DRIVERS, SUVS, HIGH SPEEDS AND PAINTBALL GUNS: WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Note to shift workers: watching Top Secret on cable is not a productive use of time, even if it is a cult classic starring a young Val Kilmer.

Call off the search. We have a winner for this year's Darwin Award.

A 17-year-old high school football player in Jenks, Oklahoma -- home of the Oklahoma Aquarium, because when you think "fascinating sea creatures," you think Oklahoma! -- died in a car crash after "following a rolling paintball battle on the Creek Turnpike." He was travelling in a SUV when one of his teammates in another vehicle thought it would be a great idea to fire paintballs at them. Teenaged drivers, adolescent hormones, paintball guns and a Red State where freedom means being able to drive 75 mph in a SUV that's more likely than other vehicles to roll over -- it's all deadly. Sadly, it really was.

OTHER BUSINESS

• As S.I.'s Dr. Z tells it, training camp used to be kind of fun.
• Good line from Bill Simmons: "I'm just disappointed that Joe Buck wasn't announcing the World Cup Final during Zidane's head butt. I just picture him giving us a 5-minute lecture about sportsmanship, saying the word "vicious" 330 times and then sobbing on live TV."
• Warm up your lungs, Edmonton Oilers fans: Chris Pronger returns with the Anaheim Ducks on Nov. 28.
• Hometown Breakdown note: Bruce Cassidy, former head coach of the NHL's Washington Capitals, is the new bench boss for the OHL's Kingston Frontenacs. Is it too early to book vacation time so I can be there when the Frontes host the 2008 Memorial Cup?
• This ties in with what Sens owner Eugene Melnyk is up to -- by moving the Toronto-St. Michael's Majors to the larger, ultramodern Hershey Centre, he's positioned his team to put in a host bid for 2008, which it wouldn't have been able to do playing at the tiny St. Michael's College Arena. What Melnyk wants, Melnyk usually gets, meaning it will probably be thanks for playing, Kingston.